How 5 Longevity Researchers Stave Off Aging
Mark Mattson, 52
(COURTESY NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING)
What he does: Limits calories to around 2,000 per day. Always skips breakfast, and lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Every evening he grazes on fruit, veggies—and a bowl of oatmeal—in addition to dinner.
Why: Research by Mattson and others suggests that restricting calories (and occasionally fasting) can stimulate "adaptive stress response mechanisms" in the body, which may boost its resistance to injury and disease. Doesn't he get hungry? "I think it's actually good to be hungry," says Mattson, who is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs less than 130 pounds. He doesn't let hunger derail his exercise routine, either. During high school cross-country season, even on days he has one meal, he'll run 6 to 9 miles with the team he coaches.
Cynthia Kenyon, 55
(NOAH BERGER)
What she does: Follows a "low glycemic index" diet, which limits foods that the body quickly converts to sugar. That means minimal pasta, potatoes, bread, and rice, and no dessert (well, an occasional morsel of dark chocolate). She now subsists on chicken Caesar salads, broccoli with peanut oil, asparagus, fish, a little red meat, and red wine.
Why: To keep her blood sugar from spiking and triggering corresponding insulin surges. The former admitted sweets addict revamped her diet after discovering in 2002 that feeding roundworms sugar cut their lives by 20 percent. Sugar promotes insulin, which turned off a "longevity gene" that Kenyon had previously found could be activated to double the worms' normal three-week life span. An equivalent gene exists in people (it, too, is deactivated by insulin). Versions of it have been linked to the ability to reach 100.
David Sinclair, 40
(SUSAN DESTEFANO—HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL)
What he does: Has taken resveratrol, a compound found in the skin of red grapes, since 2003. He has even gotten his wife and parents to follow suit.
Why: Resveratrol may activate a family of longevity-related enzymes. Sinclair gave up a calorie-restricted diet, which may work similarly, after a week. "It just made life seem longer," he says.
Felipe Sierra, 56
(COURTESY NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING)
What he does: "I laugh a lot," he says.
Why: "I really think that's the best we can do for a while," he says, laughing at his own skeptical view of the current state of research on aging.
